Slices of Life
by Shimegami
Summary: A collection of drabbles I'm doing for a meme on my lj. A character and a situation is chosen, and the stage is set...Ratings and pairings may vary greatly. Some may be humorous, angsty, or everything inbetween.
1. Koizumi Akako: Starry Sky

Hello! This is based off a drabble meme on my livejournal, which can be found through checking my profile. If you want to request a drabble, just go to my lj and pop in a comment on the Prompt/Character Meme I have at the top!

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The night was calm and vast, stretching out before her as she walked. She was miles from home in a deep forst, but she was unconcerned.

She had teleported here for a reason, after all.

They said the strongest magic could be preformed under a clear night sky. She hadn't had a chance to ever try - Tokyo's glowing power - both electrical and not-so-natural - over-powered even the endless sky.

Hence, a forest in the middle of nowhere, far away from Tokyo's ever-constant throb of energy.

Reaching her destination, a clearing large enough for a sizeable gap in the trees, she strolled to the middle and gazed upwards.

The stars stretched like a blanket overhead, as if some silly child had foolishly spilled a bottle of silver glitter over black velvet. Diamonds on a dress. Some people found it mystical - both magic users and non-magical people alike - but she was a practical and down-to-earth witch, and knew the only mystical power here was her own, and perhaps the living energy of nature itself. Some said they could commune with the spirits under a starry sky, but she suspected they'd been communing with the smoke off a certain plant rather than any spirits.

Besides, she knew, you didn't commune with spirits. You bargained with them.

Perhaps the far-off suns cast down their engery on a clear night, but all she knew was that the starry sky calmed her senses in ways most things couldn't. Not any source of mystical power, just...a sense of peace.

Raising her arms as she started to cast magic - not any of the dark powers and foolery she cast to ensare Kuroba and other boys, nor the usual everyday fare most witches cast every day, but instead just random, powerful spells just for the sake of casting, of feeling the power - Akako gave a genuine smile.

The stars seemed to smile back.

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	2. Toyama Kazuha: Behind

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She was always behind him, it felt.

Behind him in strength, behind him in intelligence and grades, just physically behind him as she followed.

Perhaps he'd been right in calling her "his little follower".

She'd given up being angry or depressed or frustrated or any of those things by now. Now, she just felt resigned. Resigned as she always seemed to see more of his back than his face. Resigned as she watched his motorcycle fade into the distance _yet again_ as he ran off to Kudo _yet again_ and left her behind _yet again_...

She hadn't been able to climb on behind him this time, he'd just kicked off and sped up...

Kazuha snorted and turned away from his figure in the distance, viciously kicking a rock, unmindful of the pain it caused to her sandalled feet.

Really, she was getting tired of being behind him. But what could she do? She mastered aikido, only to chicken out every other fight and still be outmatched by his strength in the others. Aikido relied more on technique and physics than outright brute strength like the other wrestling arts, such as judo. She'd chosen it in hopes she'd excel and become stronger than him, even with her lighter build. She'd failed, again. Even Ran-chan was better than her - Heiji even flinched when she looked ready to hit him or something. But then again, Ran-chan could dent steel with her fists alone.

Kazuha was capable of nothing of the sort.

She could win aikido tournaments. She could get good grades. She could doggedly follow him to the ends of the earth. But dammit, she was always _behind_. She wasn't _needed_.

As he proved by once again leaving her behind. Kazuha had half a mind to follow his example and just move on with her life, forgetting her feelings and her best friend and just try to be _happier_. To belong somewhere where she wasn't _behind_.

...But she didn't belong anywhere else but behind him.

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	3. Takagi Wataru: Behind The Glass

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Takagi was a very careful man.

A natural tendency to be cautious, hang back and observe and protect himself had always been in his nature, and helped him excel at a work where careful deductions and sample gathering was needed. Of course, he still had his moments of needless male bravery and stupidity - possibly caused by that acrid stuff Satou-san made and insisted was coffee. But he usualyl realised them as foolish later on, and had the grace to reprimand himself and go back to his careful lifestyle.

He treated much everything as if it was behind a thin, fine layer of glass - he wanted nothing to imede his progress, but he also didn't want to shatter that fragile wall. Whether it be carefully working a lock from the other side of a window in one of the Sleeping Kogorou's deductions, or treading around the invisible glass of unspoken emotions between him and Satou-san, or trying to search for the truth in little Conan-kun's bright blue eyes behind a pair of flimsy (and yet strong, he'd never seen the things break once...) glasses...everything was glass to Takagi, and he handled it as such.

Chiba had once told him that he was _too_ careful, that sometimes you had to break the outside to get to the goodies inside, like a pinata or those strange little chocolate balls filled with American candy that Yumi liked.

Takagi had replied that he wasn't quite sure he wanted the goodies just yet.

Oh, when it came to murders, he'd break the wall happily enough - to catch a murderer and expose justice. It was one of the few times he _could_ break that glass - when he could run after a criminal and not worrying about treading on glass shards.

He couldn't break the wall between him and Satou-san. He was too scared to find out if behind the wall really held those goodies like Chibi said, or if it held a much worse surprise, like that silly snake-in-a-can that even Satou-san had ambushed herself with.

Likewise with Conan-kun. Takagi sometimes really didn't want to know what lurked behind those thin walls of glasses that served as visionary aids - he halfway suspected they were fake and Conan-kun didn't need them - didn't want to know what secret the small boy held. And he didn't particularily feel like going to the afterlife just yet, which was the only place the boy would tell him willingly.

It was a dilemma. He wanted the prizes. But he didn't want to hamr the walls, destroy them, and maybe even find out there hadn't been any prizes at all.

So Takagi sighed, slid on his gloves and the infamous Sleeping Kogorou gave him another set of instructions - this time dealing with a delicate glass vase, it was always glass - and left the glass walls intact.

He didn't want to jinx his own walls by breaking others.

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	4. Hattori Heiji: Thirteen Black Cats

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"There goes another one, Kudo. I swear I'm jinxed."

The shrunken detective gave his taller Osaka counterpart a very flat glare.

"You've been reading Kazuha's fortune-telling books again."

Hattori laughed as he weakly rubbed the back of his neck. "But this one was really interesting and was all about Western fortune-telling and fun stuff like tarot cards and reading the stars..."

Shaking his head, Conan sighed. "And now you're seeing bad luck in everything, whether it be a ladder or a jar of salt."

Hattori shrugged helplessly. "What can I say? The stuff's saved my life before."

Conan shook his head, mumbling something about "God taking pity on the idiots with dumb luck" when he trailed off and glanced to the side. "Add another to your count, Hattori."

"What?" The Kansai native craned his head, groaning when he spotted what had caught Conan's interest. "Great. That makes twelve. Another one and something REALLY bad's gonna happen."

"Hattori, the amount of black cats you've seen has nothing to do with your luck, nor have ANY of them have crossed your path-"

A black shadow bounded across the sidewalk, right in front of them.

Across the street, there was scream.

"Oh my god he's dead!"

"Thirteen," Hattori intoned dully.

Conan merely snorted and ran towards the crime scene.

"I probably shouldn't mention I only started seeing the cats when I met up with you, huh?"

A can kicked into his face told him that yes, he probably shouldn't have.

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	5. Mouri Kogorou: Dear Myself

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That was it. He was officially going to get a tape recorded of Ran reprimanding him for being stupid, ducktape it to his head, and play it back whenever he thought of doing something stupid or speaking before he thought.

And then leave sticky notes all over his office. All saying "Stop your mouth from moving while you talk, idiot!" In bright, annoyingly cheerful yellow.

Staring down into the opening of the can of beer he held, he tried his best to tune out Ran's voice as she scolded him for drinking, making a mess, and chasing off Eri again all in the span of two hours. He really didn't need a list of his faults, he was quite aware of them all.

The brat was quiet - he always was when Eri came into the picture. Kogorou suspected it was half because the boy felt he shouldn't intrude - heaven knows why, he stuck his nose into everything else - and half because he always seemed terrified out of his wits by Eri.

Smart kid.

Finally growling something like an illegible apology at Ran to get her to just stop _telling him what he already knew_, he swivelled his chair around and stared broodingly out the window, can of beer forgotten in his hand.

His thoughts drifted as he watched the reflections in the glass, focusing on Conan as the boy stared at his chair back. To be honest, Kogorou resented the brat less than he acted like. The mysterious checks in the mail covered all of Conan's expenses and far more, enough to put aside for his college even. Kogorou had a niggling doubt that it was neccessary - the boy didn't seem in any hurry to go home, and his parents seemed to feel the same way. For all Kogorou knew, he should just adopt the brat already.

But he lightened things up in the Mouri household, that was for sure. His cheerful attitude, bright intelligence, and habit for trouble kept Ran busy and happy, out of trouble and not moping as much as she would be over that missing detective brat. Eri liked the boy, as well - though he seemed terrified of her - and had even said she wouldn't mind the boy as a permanent living additon, should she ever decide to return. Kogorou pretended to this day he hadn't overheard that conversation.

And he'd become a famous detective soon after the boy came. He was like a real good-luck charm.

Not that he helped Kogorou with _himself_, of course. He certainly wasn't grabbing Kogorou's foot before it stuck in his mouth, or coaxing Eri back to the detective agency with all his power like Ran. Kogorou's problems were Kogorou's own fault.

He knew that very well.

Sighing, he glanced at his can of beer, debating on drinking more or lighting up a cigarette. He decided against the cigarrete - Conan got colds easily, and Ran had been frowning on his smoking in the boy's presence lately, jabbering on about things like cancer and asthma in a seven-year-old. She doted on that boy more than anyone else, really.

Looking at his can still, Kogorou sighed as he realised he wasn't in the mood to drink for once. Tossing the beer into the trash - earning a surprised glance from the other two occupants of the room - Kogorou merely grumbled and buried his nose in the racing newspaper.

Maybe next time he'd listen to his common sense and do the right thing when it came to Eri, too.

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	6. Gin: Dancing Lessons

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Gin decided that this was officially the stupidest plan in existence.

Gin didn't do undercover. He just didn't _blend in_. He was a tall man with long blonde hair in _Japan_ and they wanted him to _blend in_.

He decided the mission assigners were finally cracking. They'd been due anyways, what with that mess during Vermouth's annual party. Vodka was still trying to regrow his hair from that fiasco.

Well, his higher-up's sanity non-withstanding, it still meant that Gin would have to infiltrate a higher-end party to reach his target. He'd have to..._dance_. And _converse_.

Gin felt slightly dirty already.

Vermouth gave him a sweet smile.

"It's not so bad, Gin. You'll learn to tolerate it."

He gave her his best glower and "evil voice" - damn, why was this woman never affected by the voice? - and growled. "How am I supposed to learn to tolerate being flung around by numerous air-headed bitches trying to get into both my pants and the money I'm pretending to have?"

She smiled. It wasn't a nice smile. "Like I tolerate the male version of the same. Pretend you're decapitating them while they dance. It's much more interesting, especially when you give them scores for impressive blood splatters."

Gin paused, cocked his head, and finally nodded. She had a point.

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	7. Nakamori Aoko: Black Thread, Red Thread

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Aoko was not a fanciful girl by nature. She wasn't prone to daydreams about romance or her perfect guy or anything like that. But that didn't mean she didn't wonder, even just a little.

Her favorite romance story was always the red thread. She loved the symbolism, the feeling of destined and pure love. She often wondered who her thread was tied to - her wild best friend (she never admitted that she wondered about him), her latest celebrity idol, or perhaps some wonderful stranger she hadn't met yet...

Akako-chan had told her red wasn't the only color of thread there was. Each strong emotion towards a person created a thread in that color. Green was envy. Yellow was friendship. Red was love, of course. Black was hate.

Aoko hadn't understood what she meant then. Akako-chan was always just a little strange, even Aoko liked to pretend she was normal and defend her to Kaito.

She didn't understand. It made sense, but she hadn't _understood_ what the other girl meant, why she told her.

She didn't understand until she stared, vaguely horrified at the unmasked Kaitou Kid standing before her that she had cornered, with a look of abject horror, most liekly mirroring her own.

Akako never had told her. From different angles, different lightings, colors could change and not be what they appeared. Red could appear black, or yellow, and vica versa.

She wished then she had known what the original color of the thread had been, red or black.

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	8. Gin: City Of Cherry Blossoms

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Japan, the land of cherry blossoms.

Gin wasn't sure if he was Japanese originally - probably not, but his memory was horrific when it didn't involve work. Besides, he'd been so long in this country of cherry blossoms and technology and crowded streets that it didn't matter where he came from or went, it had left it's mark on him.

Cherry blossoms. Faint, fleeting things, Japan's symbol of death and rebirth. The things died so fast, so quickly, but they came back every spring.

Rather like a certain missing operative.

Sherry's life was gone, dead - she'd killed her herself. But she had slipped out of the shackles to be reborn in a new life, one that was being especially difficult to find her in.

Snorting and grinding his cigarette butt into the ground with his heel, and he strode to his waiting car. Rebirth or not, he'd find her. And that strange guy she'd been with too.

The blossoms wouldn't bloom anymore if you cut down the tree.

Starting up his car, ignoring Vodka's question, Gin drove off into the night, the Porsche's black body sliding into the night and disappearing.

Cherry blossom petals gently drifted through the space he'd left.

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	9. Edogawa Conan: Unreachable Voice

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Of all the useful items Agasa made for him, Conan liked the bowtie the least.

Oh, sure, it was his livelihood. Shinichi was kept alive through that bowtie. Mysteries were solved through it. His life was saved because of it.

But really, Conan didn't like it.

It was a reminder of everything. A reminder that when he opened his mouth to speak, it wasn't his real voice that came out. When he looked in the mirror, it wasn't his real face that stared back. They were his voice and face, true, but not the voice and face he _should have_.

It was a sign of his weakness. Of his tiny form that no one took seriously. That didn't have the power to stop criminals like it should. That couldn't comfort one lost and hurt girl as she waited desperately for her best friend to return.

He also hated it because he was so indebted to it. It kept Kudo Shinichi alive, the desperate link both Conan and Ran clung to while holding a phone receiver in one hand. It was his only link to his true self.

He had begun to despise wearing it, only putting it on when he had to dress formally. During the beginning months, he'd had to wear it constantly to match the uniforms he wore, until Ran had started shopping for him as well, bringing home casual outfits he wore only too gladly. Whenever he put it on, it always felt like it was tightening around his neck, choking him, like that one nightmare he'd had where it had tightened and he had been suffocating, but he couldn't call out because it was on and if he did, he'd call out in his real voice and then his secret would be exposed, so he'd quietly suffocated to death in his dream, waking just before he exhaled his last breath.

Conan sometimes wondered if he was going a little crazy.

But it sometimes did feel suffocating. The grade school, the sweet "big sister" smile on Ran's face, Kogorou's grumping at him, his ever-present crowd of detective hopefuls...sometimes it felt like he was being choked to death by this life, that SHinichi was slowly being strangled out of existence by one Edogawa Conan. He could only breathe over the phone to Ran, but that held it's own suffocation, of frustration and tears and lost chances.

Conan decided he didn't need to wonder about being crazy anymore, he obviously was.

So, he sighed, muttered a quick goodbye to Ran through the bowtie and clicked off her desperate voice as he hung up the phone, and shoved the bowtie back into his pocket. He couldn't stand to wear it anymore, but neither could he ever leave it behind.

Neither Kudo Shinichi or Edogawa Conan could live without it. It dangled both of their lives in front of them, so tantalizingly close, but in the end just an unreachable voice.

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	10. Hakuba Saguru: Love Potion

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"Koizumi, _please_ give him the antidote?"

"It doesn't have one. It'll have to wear off naturally."

"But...there has to be some sort of cure! I know you intended the potion to be for me and probably didn't make antidote, but there has to be some way to reverse this! For his sake!"

"Sorry, Kuroba-kun. You'll just have to put up with it."

"Well...at the very least could you conjure up some ear plugs? He won't stop _crooning_ and _singing_, and he's giving the chibi a run for his money in how bad he can sing."

"What chibi?"

"Nevermind. Just, _please_. Something! At least to save the victim? He's even following me home and to the toilet and it's getting disturbing."

"...I'll consider it. Especially considering what he's doing behind your back."

"What? No! Hakuba, get your hands _off my dove!_"

"It really was a shame Hakuba took the potion, and the first thing he saw was your dove..."

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	11. Kuroba Kaito: Illusion

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Illusions were his specialty.

A quick hand there, a dove hidden there, and suddenly truth was defied as he preformed the impossible.

There were some who could see through his illusions, true. The shrunken Kudo had an annoying habit of being able to accurately decipher and repeat any trick he used. His Kansai friend wasn't bad either. And Hakuba sometimes managed to think outside the box and catch him pulling it off.

But they were exceptions to the rule. Normally, all he had to do was wave his hand and people were amazed. A flutter of a colored scarf or a wave of red rose petals was all it took to blind their eyes to the truth, even Aoko's.

He didn't feel too guilty, really. He was screaming the truth at them each time he preformed a trick, that they could easily see if they wanted to, like Kudo. It wasn't his fault they didn't choose to, that they were willing to fall for the smoke and the mirrors and the glittering lifestyle of a high-end magician. It kept him safe, that willingness to believe.

It kept him safe, it kept them believing. It allowed him to don the greatest and yet most flimsy mask of all time, a mask so close and yet so far away it might have been real once, but had been lost. He took a deep breath, like he usually did before any performance, and slid that mask on. To begin his preformance behind his illusions. So long as they believed the mask, they believed him. He stepped forward onto his stage.

Kuroba Kaito smiled at his classmates and wished them a good morning.

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	12. Hakuba Saguru: Black Thread, Red Thread

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One of Hakuba's hidden hobbies was that he rather enjoyed sewing.

Not embroidery or knitting or those strange little circle-thing women all seemed to adore, but just taking a piece of clothes and fashioning an article of clothing out of it was a sastifying experience.

It wasn't a hobby he admitted to the public - Kuroba would never let him live it down, for one - but he enjoyed it nonetheless.

Hakuba was also rather dense. It was a fault he recognized in himself, and always tried to fix. Despite his booksmarts, however, he knew he had problems thinking outside his box, in being creative. He got stuck in a rut of certain ways of thinking, and was a creature of habit. It was definitely a fault - hadn't he been completely wrong in that one murder case because he was so used to Kid's techniques he had assumed the murderer had used them as well?

He wasn't all that creative. He was fairly dense. Compared to the other two detectives on Kid's trail - that small Edogawa boy was a detective, it couldn't be missed, not with that steady gaze and intensity and hadn't he been the one to name the real murderer in that case? And the missing Kudo Shinichi...you'd have to be blind to not notice the way Kuroba's muscles tensed when that name was mentioned at the name of the one detective to corner him. Kudo made Kuroba nervous. Edogawa Conan got the same reaction.

Compared to them, Hakuba wasn't even a threat to Kuroba. It was in the casual way Kuroba treated him, dismissed him, the blatant disrespect he gave him. It was in the gaze the other boy too often levelled towards him - flat and cold, a gaze that said nothing but "You can't touch me, you're not on my level"...

Hakuba would wipe that look off Kuroba's face one day, he was sure of it. He would become the boy's equal.

Creativity was the key. Hakuba was no slouch, and had decided to investigate the detectives Kuroba _did_ respect, to see what set them apart from the others. Both Edogawa and Kudo enjoyed writing and drawing, it was rumored. Even that arrogant Kansai detective Hattori had a habit of singing to himself - a trait Hakuba had been ready to strangle him for during the one case they shared.

So Hakuba had to learn creativity. In his dogmatic mind, it was simple. Learn creativity to understand how Kid thought. Nevermind that creativity was a talent - Hakuba didn't waste time on things like "inborn talents". Hard work would overcome all.

Or so he thought.

He'd tried to attempt writing and drawing first, the traditonal creative arts.

Kuroba had laughed him out of the classroom at his first attempt. To be honest, Hakuba couldn't recognize what he'd been trying to draw either. Perhaps a bird...or a cat...or a tentacle monster from the depths of space, which is what it ended up resembling.

Kuroba had sat down then, smoothing out the paper and picking up his pencil, had quickly sketched out something next to Hakuba's drawing with quick, graceful movements of his pencil, before smirking and handing the paper back to the British teen. A fairly accurate, if cartoonish, Watson glared back at him from the paper. So he _had_ been trying to draw a bird, then.

Writing went no better. He just couldn't write stories - they all ended up reading like reports or some other scientific drabble. Singing...well, let's just say that the entire class had threatened dismemberment, decapitation, and castration no him all at once if he attempted to sing again. He hadn't thought he'd been that bad...

And so, Hakuba had, in a fling of desperation, picked up sewing.

He wasn't bad at it - his precision was good for one thing, and that was measuring clothes and making the tiny stitches in just the right spot to make quality clothes. It was just the patterns he had problems with. He used the same ones over and over, and when he tried to do something different, he ended up staring at the roll of fabric in his hands, a complete blank as to what he should make.

Hakuba supposed that's what a lack of creativity meant. He was never able to come up with anything new.

And it led to other problems. Like now.

He had been working with a black material which had random red scattered over it. For the most part, due to the pattern of the shirt he was making, the black had been on the seams, so he'd used black thread. Simple.

But now, as teh red boldly emblazoned the front, he was faced with a dilemma. Use the black thread, and have the threads stand out like small ants marching up the red parts? Or use the red thread and end up looking like fresh cuts lined the black?

It was frustrating, and irritatiing, and Hakuba supposed this was why he'd never catch Kid. He just couldn't solve problems creatively, come up with new solutions all his own.

It was a slightly bitter experience.

Until, out of nowhere, a thought came to him.

Why not use both?

Dropping the colors of thread he'd been holding, Hakuba turned to dig through his fancy thread basket. Finally finding what he'd been looking for, he pulled the spool out and examined it.

It was multi-color thread - read and black, of course. It would be different, and unexpected to use it on seams...something never done.

But perhaps that's just what it needed. Something different.

With a small smile, Hakuba threaded his needle and began stitching up the front of the shirt.

Perhaps he wasn't so hopeless, after all.

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	13. Hondou Eisuke: Ensnared By Destiny

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There wasn't much that Hondou Eisuke could do about a lot of things, and he realised that.

Like his dear missing sister - how long had he searched, and yet, it wasn't he who had found her first.

Also, his clumsiness - he tried his best to take care and not bumble into things, and yet, it always seemed like there would be something to slip on wherever he placed his foot, or his head would also find itself in a collision with the only hanging object in the area.

It was frustrating, and embarrassing, and there was nothing Eisuke could do about it. He knew that very well - the harder he tried not to bump into things, the more bad luck would find him. Even if he sat shock still in a chair somewhere, it would be the only broken chair or something and he would fall out of it.

He hated it...hated having to be forced to do anything. And yet, that was the way his life always seemed to go - he wasn't in control of anything.

And it had gotten worse lately. Everything new and upsetting in his life had been caused by one recent event. Rediscovering his sister, and...one little boy with blue eyes and glasses.

There was something about little Conan-kun...something that tugged at Eisuke, forcing him to watch the little boy whenever he was about. And what Eisuke saw always unnevred him - even if he forgot it five minutes later when he fell down the stairs or something of the like.

The way the dead seemed to follow the boy...and how he sometimes never seemed like a kid at all, but someone with far more years and maturity than Eisuke himself...not to mention his brilliant plans andf how the FBI had accepted his suggestions so easily...

Somehow, Conan was not who he seemed. And it frustrated Eisuke to no end that no matter how he looked into it, there was nothing there, nothing but one little boy named Edogawa Conan - who was not a little boy in any sense of the word.

He hated being tied down, being forced to live a life directed by other's people's rules and wishes. And yet, the more he associated with Ran-san and her little charge, the more he found events of his life spinning out of control - like he was just another pawn to dance on strings for Conan-kun - just another living playing piece the boy used in his goal to beat some game, a game far above the heads of anyone else, even the FBI.

And there was nothing Eisuke could do about it - unless he disappeared, but then what would the point of his life be? And, even if he hated it, for all he knew, he could end up a key piece for that game.

So, he stayed. And had to wonder, even if the boy himself seemed unaware of it, just how big of a destiny the boy had, for the force to control everyone around him to play for him. How important the boy was, for people to become what he needed when he needed them.

Perhaps it was not Eisuke who was ensared.

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	14. Kudo Shinichi: Love Potion

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In a rare turn of events, one Koizumi Akako had managed to succeed in her plan to ensare Kuroba Kaito, aka the uncatchable Kaitou Kid - partially.

He had certainly, by accident, managed to ingest the item coated with a love potion she had planted on him.

Unfortunately, for the witch, it had happened in the middle of his heist, far away from her, and when he opened his eyes, the first living thing he saw certainly wasn't her, but rather one teenage detective named Kudo Shinichi.

Said detective had no idea of this, however - and he certainly wouldn't have believed in it, anyways.

Instead, all he knew was that, instead of him chasing and trying the thief, it was now reversed - he was running away from the thief - who was doing the chasing.

At least Shinichi wasn't running to stay out of jail, but rather to keep his dignity and not be molested by a Kid suddenly entirely too interested in pinning Shinichi to the ground and thoroughly ravishing the detective.

Shinichi knew this very well - he had been pinned once, the first time the thief had spotted him and jumped him, as Shinichi had been unaware.

This had to be the most bizarre situation he had ever been in.

Crammed into a tiny closet, the detective prayed that Kid wasn't nearly as good at the seeking as he was at the hiding. After all, since hiding was Shinichi's weak point, if Kid could seek as well as he hid, Shinichi was in trouble.

He had no idea why the thief was acting like this - and no idea how to get out of it. For all he knew, Kid might even follow him home. And while he wanted to arrest the thief, he certainly wasn't going to do it by having the cops show up on them when Shinichi was half-naked with Kid's hands down his pants.

He'd only saved his pants the _first_ time due to a feat of gymnastic-like kicking that he certainly wasn't able to accomplish normally. His upper leg and lower back muscles would be telling him that move was stupid tomorrow.

Or perhaps quite sooner than tomorrow, as he realised that yes, Kid was a master thief, quite able to find a jewel no matter where it was hidden, and he proved that by latching white-clad arms around Shinichi, pinning him effectively.

In the tiny closet, with no room to manuever, there would be no side kicks to the head to save Shinichi now.

So, as he was turned around and suddenly found his mouth quite occupied and his shirt missing again, Shinichi wondered if he should just give up and acknowledge he'd caught the thief in at least one way - though not as satisfying as throwing his white ass in jail, capturing his heart wasn't maybe so bad.

No, definitely not bad at all. Kid was certainly very talented - he hadn't been aware hands could do that to him.

---

Akako looked in her compact mirror - now serving as a make-shift scrying mirror - and swore to herself, very creatively.

Damn that raven - he had the worst timing.

Well, maybe not the _worst_, she amended to herself as she looked in the mirror again and blushed. At least it made for some nice viewing material.

------


End file.
